SuSE 13.1

My system is incredibly slow all of the sudden. Even after a reboot, it gets to the login screen no problem. When I enter my password it shows me the splash screen (the hard drive, then the tools, but then it hangs for about 5 minutes before showing the desktop icon. Finally it shows the KDE icon with the gear. It hangs for another few minutes and then I have my desktop. A few minutes later I can see my icons.

When I open anything such as dolphin, it takes a full three minutes before the window appears. I tried opening Firefox and Google Chrome, and you see the bouncing icon indicating that they are trying to load, and then after about a full minute it just disappears and nothing happens. I cannot even get a web browser window open.

I commented out two entries I may have mistyped in my /etc/fstab. I should also note that I no longer have dual monitors, the second monitor is simply a mirror of the first. Not sure how that happened. And as for the slowness, I'm running an 8-core with 16 GB of DDR3.

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log.txt (236.8 KB, 58 views)

Memtest, be sure that all ram is shown and tests well.

Run live cd and check hard drive smart status. Check filesystem status too.

Boot to single user or telinit 3 and use top to see. Actually, you can use alt terminals to shell to use top command during this problem.

If you've used btrfs then use tools to see actual space free. Might be able to do time slider back to a time when it worked.

1 members found this post helpful.

I'm downloading a DVD right now. Managed to get Virtual Box running. I've attached the output of top.

Attached Files

top.txt (6.9 KB, 82 views)

You don't say anything about the hardware specs of your system, or whether you had Linux on it before. However, one thing I WILL mention is that ever since I've been using openSUSE, the first boot/login takes a LONG time. Lots of indexing and other such things going on....but after letting things get finished, it's pretty snappy after that. Have you tried just leaving the system alone after a login for a while, to see it if gets better?

There were issues (were? still are... https://forums.opensuse.org/english/...se-13-1-a.html), with akonadi. Some fixes/suggestions can be found on the openSUSE site.

By any chance, what does your hard-drive activity look like during the period things are slow? And if you upgraded the system, have you tried creating a test user ID, and seeing if it can log in any better?? The 'old' database/kde configs in your home directory may be getting shoveled into the new format, and a new user may be better to test with.

Is there a command I can use to show all the specs? I'll google it and see how to find this info. I'm about to head to work so I won't be able to post anything relevant in that respect until I get back. I'll also creating a new user account and seeing how that works. This is a new install of 13.1...probably a month old. Very little has been installed on it. It's not dual-boot. It was a clean install. I've never had this problem before. It usually holds on the boot screen for 20 seconds, but now it's more like 5-8 minutes.

There are several commands, but do you not know ANYTHING about your own PC? How much RAM? What kind of CPU? That's pretty much all we're asking.
As asked previously, did this machine EVER have Linux on it before? And the fact that it's sitting on the boot screen itself for 5 minutes or more is telling, and indicates some other issue. At that point, NO indexing or anything else CAN take place, since the system isn't booted yet. You are talking about the GRUB screen, when you say the 'boot screen', right?

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It has not had Linux on it before. This machine had Windows 7 on it before. When I did the install of OpenSUSE, I formatted the drive. As for the hardware, I assumed you needed specific specs such as the latency of the memory or cache size of the CPU, etc. I've got 16 GB of DDR3 RAM (2x 8GB sticks) and an AMD FX-8150 8-Core CPU. I'm using a SATA 80 GB drive. When I first made this post I incorrectly stated that it was the boot screen but before anyone posted a reply, I edited it to say it was the login screen.

So to recap, the other day it was fine. In fact, for the past month, it usually took just a few seconds after entering my password to get onto my desktop. Now it takes 5-8 minutes. I'll see the desktop finally load but won't have any icons for a few more minutes.

how old is the 80GB drive?

I got it (used) from work, so I'm not sure. But if we're looking at it that way then I'll just try a new drive. I'll have to check it (and RAM) for errors after work. Before I do that though I'll make a new user account (as previously suggested) and see if the problem is related to my profile.

I'd guess the drive is pretty old..

I have been so busy during the holidays and wasn't abke to see the end result of the memory test but I took a pic before heading out to the Greyhound.

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I don't have a screenshot but there were hundreds of errors found during the memory test. I removed one stick of RAM (I have two) and reran the test. No errors were found. I swapped the sticks (using the same slot) and ran the test yet again, and within 5 minutes I had tons of errors. So it's not the slot, it's the one stick.

Kept the good stick in and started up SuSE. It doesn't get to the login screen. All I see is the default KDE background wallpaper, but no login prompt appears. Normally this will show up quickly. Went back into BIOS and set the memory to 1600 MHz (which is what it is rated for), saved changes and rebooted. Same issue. In BIOS again, reset all settings to default values, saved and rebooted. Same issue.

The memory issue has been corrected (not using the bad stick) but I believe I have a second problem...bad hard drive? Will have to run a disk test tonight.

suse and opensuse are VERY GUI centric
as in it is normally easier to use the GUI for most normal activities than try to use the terminal
( running zypper and a update are an exception )

there is a very nice tool on
( kde4 desktop manager)
kickoff / computer / info center

or type in the terminal

or use YAST2
open yast and click on "hardware information "

and you will get EVERYTHING
and i mean EVERYTHING

Damn, I can't even get to the login screen anymore. I switched to a different terminal line (is that how you say it?) and logged in as root. Tried running kinfocenter from the command line but I get the command not found error. I downloaded the requirements as per cnf kinfocenter, and reran the command but it's saying that it can't connect to X server.

I ran badblocks on all four partitions of my drive and no errors were found. Wondering if there is another way to scan for errors...will have to do more googling.

Here's a screenshot of the smart data. I don't believe that I had mentioned that I had reinstalled SuSE a second time after trying to create a second user account and then failing to log in within a reasonable amount of time.

The results of the smart test (not in screenshot) say that it passed. Either way I do have a 2TB drive on its way here from eBay, so if all else fails I'll explore that option.